Pre-trial Ruling: It`s Legal To Infiltrate Church Services

WASHINGTON — The federal government won the opening round in a church-state bout with the sanctuary movement aiding Central American refugees, but don`t look for a quick knockout.

The movement, composed of churches that harbor Central Americans facing deportation, was staggered by a pre-trial ruling June 26 in Phoenix, Ariz., that it was legal for the government to infiltrate religious services.

Many church leaders across the country are fighting back, charging that the infiltration by paid undercover informants, wired for sound, into churches and Bible study classes was a gross violation of freedom of religion.

The General Synod of the United Church of Christ has called for a congressional investigation of the infiltration, which was the key to gathering evidence against the dozen defendants in the Arizona case.

``I don`t think anybody anticipated that this could happen in the United States,`` said the Rev. John M. Fife, who will go on trial in early September in Phoenix with the other defendants named last Jan. 14. A 71-count indictment charges numerous violations of federal immigration laws. The charges carry possible penalties of five years in prison.

The movement primarily shelters Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees who make up the great bulk of the 500,000 Central Americans the Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates are in the United States illegally.

``Nobody is happy with the federal government deciding whether activities are religious or political,`` said Fife, pastor of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Ariz., where the sanctuary movement began in 1982.

Fife, two other defendants and their attorney were in Washington to explain their side of the case, which is expected to set precedents for future government interpretation of federal laws dealing with immigration and refugees.

Fife and others in the movement applaud current efforts to expand it to embrace black South Africans seeking political asylum, as well as refugees from other countries who fear deportation.

``Sanctuary is not a nationalistic thing,`` Fife said.

Although many in the movement oppose U.S. policy in Central America, Fife said, ``We don`t have a litmus test.``

He said many support the biblical concept of sanctuary for religious rather than political reasons.

Fife said he expects the government`s infiltration of the Arizona churches to draw support for the movement from more main-line congregations opposed to any inroads on religious freedom.

``We`re beginning to see that kind of support emerge,`` he said.

Fife and the other defendants argue that the U.S. Refugee Act of 1980 clearly provides for asylum for any persons ``unwilling or unable`` to return to their homeland because of political persecution, or even a ``well-founded fear`` of it.

``If the refugees have a right to be here, these people have committed no crime,`` said James Brosnahan, a San Francisco lawyer representing the defendants.

Katherine Flaherty, a defendant who served as a Peace Corps volunteer in El Salvador from 1977 to 1979, said she lived in that country with a family who have since become political refugees in the United States.

Flaherty said the family fled after receiving ``threatening letters.``

``They are definitely political refugees,`` she said, disputing the government`s claim that most Central American refugees left their countries for economic rather than political reasons. ``They are victims of U.S. policy in Central America.``

Like Flaherty, Peggy Hutchison, a defendant who is on the staff of the Tucson Metropolitan Ministry, said she was motivated to aid refugees by both religion and politics.

On the issue of sanctuary, Hutchison said, ``You can`t separate religion from politics.

``We`ve seen Salvadoran refugees with napalm burns,`` she said, contending the victims had been wounded by American weaponry.

Sanctuary supporters charge the United States is quick to grant political asylum to those fleeing communist countries, while denying it those who flee countries it supports, such as El Salvador.

They also charge that Central Americans have been deported to their deaths, although the State Department states it has not uncovered a single case in which a deportee has been singled out for persecution of any kind.

Pre-trial rulings in the Arizona case have held that the defendants cannot present evidence that their actions were necessary to save the lives of refugees, or that their religious beliefs motivated them to provide sanctuary.

The defendants fear that the jury at their trial will hear little of the truth if those rulings stand. So the three of them and their lawyer came to Washington to state their case in what they call ``this historic confrontation between the church and the state.``

``If there`s any justice left in America,`` Brosnahan said, none of his clients will go to prison.